“The Downward Spiral”, the 1994 by Nine Inch Nails (a.k.a. Trent Reznor), is probably the single most disturbing and chilling album in my 450+ album collection. It is a concept album about a man who travels down the “downward spiral” of life, ending in his suicide. It’s an incredible achievement on many levels, though I feel the story goes over many people’s heads. This review will focus less on the music and more on the concept and lyrics of the album. I consider “The Downward Spiral” to be in my top 5 favorite albums of all time.
The album starts off with the aggressive “Mr. Self Destruct”. It acts as an introduction to the themes of the album. Musically it is a long cry from Reznor’s first album “Pretty Hate Machine”. Self Destruct is much more industrial, bordering on noise at many places. It ends with an abrasive avant-garde riff that foreshadows the dark feel of the whole album. The contrast of soft mellow passages and loud, noise-like passages is one that is used in many different songs on this album, representing the battle of man vs. machine (which will be explained more later).
The real story begins with “Piggy”, which musically also is a strong contrast to the first song. It features a bass as the lead instrument, with various sound effects and textures layered over as the song continues. It also features a very interesting drum solo near the end of the song. The song describes a lover that is lost, which hurts the character deeply. It is the first time the chilling verse: “Nothing can stop me now/Because I don’t care anymore”, is used, it is used many times throughout the album.
The next song is “Heresy”, a much heavier song. Here Reznor proclaims that “God is dead”. In this song the main character blames all of his problems, and many of the world’s problems such as AIDS, on God. He says he would rather burn in hell then follow a God.
Next up is “March of the Pigs”, one of Nine Inch Nail’s most popular songs. It is very fast, at 200+ bpm. While “Piggy” was about one person, “March of the Pigs” shows the character’s hate towards society in general (“I want to break it up/I want to smash it up/I want to fuck it up/I want to watch it come down”). This hatred prevents him from connecting personally with the world, isolating himself.
While “March of the Pigs” is popular, “Closer” is by far the most popular Nine Inch Nails song released. it features a simple drum beat, a grooving bass line and sexually explicit lyrics (it will be forever known for the line “I want to fuck you like an animal”). It also, however, is a very important song to the story. The song describes the character’s obsession. His obsession is that he will do anything for control. He feels that sex is the ultimate form of control, as it is completely taking over somebody else. Because of this, he will do anything for it. His whole reason for staying alive is to have control over someone else, hence the line “you are the reason I stay alive”. The ending notes of this song will return in the song “The Downward Spiral”, suggesting that this obsession is what in the end will destroy him, tying back to the theme of “Mr. Self Destruct”.
As the song “Piggy” described, the character’s lover will no longer submit herself to him. Because of this, he decides to direct all of his rage and hate towards God. ”Ruiner” acts a direct condemning of God, and everything that it has done. The character decides that the lies of God is the root of his problem, and attempts to overthrow him. The song falls apart into a guitar solo that shows that the man is now free. As “Heresy” foreshadowed, God is dead (at least in the mind of the character). The line “Nothing can stop me now” returns, much stronger than it was whimpered in “Piggy”.
But Reznor is cut off mid-sentence and “The Becoming” begins. Overthrowing God did not stop the main source of his problems, which is himself. He has been deceiving himself the whole time. The music becomes very mechanical, the sound of indifference. Since God has been overthrown, there is no human morals left. This brings up the new theme for the rest of the album, the mechanical side of indifference that was created when God was overthrown versus the small amount of humanity left inside of him. As the song says, “The me that you know, he doesn’t come around much anymore/That part of me isn’t here anymore”. However the song suddenly cuts to an acoustic breakdown and Reznor starts softly singing, showing that the human side is not completely gone. But just as suddenly as it began, the mechanical side takes control once again.
The next song, “I Do Not Want This”, is a battle between the human and mechanical sides of the character, as is well illustrated by the music. It frequently jumps between soft pianos and heavy machinery as Reznor switches between soft whispering and near screaming to illustrate the dialogue. As the end of the song approaches it is clear that the human side is losing the battle. The mechanical once again describes it’s obsession with control as it pronounces it’s new goal; “I want to know everything/I want to be everywhere/I want to fuck everyone in the world/I want to do something that matters”.
If you thought “Closer” was sexual, then you haven’t listened to “Big Man with a Gun”, which is essentially one long phallic metaphor. His obsession with control, and therefore sex, is blatantly obvious here. He no longer sees other people as humans, they are merely “pigs” to him now, just as they were the “pigs” of God.
The violent, mechanical music and yelling of “Big Man with a Gun” suddenly stops and the heartbreaking “A Warm Place” begins; a soft, almost ambient instrumental piece that acts as the turning point of the album. It is tranquil and honestly a beautiful song. The human character realizes his whole life has been spent inflicting pain on others. He also realizes that there is one way to escape and defeat the mechanical voice: death.
The ambience of “A Warm Places” fades into the chilling sound effects of “Eraser”, the first half of which is instrumental. Near the end of the song, he describes his destructive nature (“Need you/dream you/taste you/fuck you/use you/scar you/break you”), before pleading for someone to end his life (“lose me/hate me/smash me/erase me/kill me”). The song ends with him hauntingly screaming the last line, showing that he is not yet ready to take his own life.
Following “Eraser” is “Reptile”. The character can’t quite bring himself to pull the trigger, so he tries to find a way out. He tries to find someone who has become as indifferent as him, which comes to him in the form of a prostitute. However the cold indifference inside of her only causes him to see it within himself. Because of this, his search for a way out only causes him further disgust with himself. This is the final step in the “downward spiral”, the character has now realized that he must pull the trigger if he is to escape.
“The Downward Spiral” opens with the same notes used in “Closer”, establishing the link between the two, illustrating how the man’s destructive obsession with control has led him to where he his. The mechanical voice describes the scene, “He put the gun to his face/…so much blood for such a tiny little hole/…problems have solutions/a lifetime of fucking things up fixed in one determined flash”. As the scene is being described, the human voice lets out a bloodcurdling scream that lasts for the rest of the song, and the two sides of the character die together.
…or not? The song “Hurt” opens up and it is the only song on the album that does not feature any of the mechanical music, it is simply the human voice reflecting on everything that has occurred with a sole piano accompanying him, and textures in the background. “I hurt myself today” he confesses. He also finally gives up his obsession with control, and offers himself up to anybody who will accept him (“you could have it all”). However at the end of the last verse, the whole song comes crashing down into noisy static that goes on for the last minute of the album. Somehow the human side has managed to survive, but it is still plagued with problems. Reznor has said that the 1999 album “The Fragile” is a direct continuation of the story of “The Downward Spiral”, so the end of “Hurt” is almost a sort of cliffhanger. However, taken in the context of the album, it is a sort of “happy ending”, though this final confession and apology occurs after so much pain has been caused.
At the time, however, people did not know that it was a cliffhanger. The casual fan had no idea, but Reznor said multiple times in interviews that this album was a reflection of what he had been feeling lately. This caused fear to spread amongst the hardcore NIN fans. The suicide of Kurt Cobain occured during this time period, and some people were afraid that “The Downward Spiral” was Reznor’s suicide note to the world. Indeed, later in his life Trent said that he was going down his own downward spiral. However this post is already 1500+ words, so I’ll continue both the fictional story described in the album and Trent’s personal life in my review of “The Fragile” which I’m sure will pop up within the next few months.
Track listing:
- Mr. Self Destruct
- Piggy
- Heresy
- March of the Pigs
- Closer
- Ruiner
- The Becoming
- I Do Not Want This
- Big Man with a Gun
- A Warm Place
- Eraser
- Reptile
- The Downward Spiral
- Hurt
Obviously this album is a 5/5. No other album comes close to the emotional impact this album can have. It’s not my all time favorite, but it’s easily my top 5.
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In the coming months we have a live Between the Buried and Me album coming out, some live Liquid Tension Experiment, live Dream Theater and a new Metallica album so I’ll definitely be writing more reviews. And I’ll get around to “The Fragile” sometime too, as well as all my favorite albums.
And I’m working on my solo stuff, by the end of August I should be releasing something. This is a helluva long post, so apologies =)
Posted by Kevin 
Posted by Kevin 
Posted by Kevin 
